Monday, May 10, 2004

I had dinner at Hana with Miss K a few days ago. I don't recall if I've mentioned this, but Miss K is an independent call girl. So whenever we do dinner, it's an opportunity to have a Bitch-About-Work Fiesta. We both like what we do, but sometimes you just have to vent to someone who gets it.

"Okay, who gets to go first?" I asked.
"Oh, I think that would have to be – ME!" she answered
"Ooo, that good, huh? Well, let me have it, baby."
"Fuckin' A, the weirdo I saw this week – you won't believe what he did."

I start laughing a little already, just watching her head do that snakelike swivel of outrage. Miss K has a background in theatre, and it shows: her eyes, her hands, her shoulders – they all eloquently express her total disdain for this man who dared offend her. When all six feet of an irritated Amazon queen gets going, it's better than a floor show. I love having such entertaining friends.

"So, it was a new guy, and he sounded a little weird on the phone, but not scary-weird, just no-social-skills-weird."
I understand this perfectly. It's nice when one gets to see sophisticated men as clients, but frankly, if it weren't for guys with no social skills, there'd be a lot of hungry sex workers in the world.

"He arrives for the appointment ten minutes early." We share a grimace. We hate it when people are early, since we're always flying around getting ready until the last possible moment.

"I have him sit down on the couch in the living room and ask him to wait for a few minutes. I leave the room for, oh, maybe five minutes. When I come back into the room-" she leans forward for emphasis, "he's rearranging all my fucking furniture."
"You're kidding me?"
"I'm serious. He's moved the couch and coffee table, and he's got the edge of the area rug, and he's pulling on it."
I sit there silently for a moment, picturing this. "That's bizarre."
"Oh - and did I mention he's naked?"
I give a whoop of laughter. "No!"
She gestures with her hands to indicate that she can find no words to express her incredulity. I try to stop laughing, not because it offends her – we always play these kinds of incidents for laughs with each other – but because it's so outré that I have to say:
"So you asked him what the hell he was doing, right?"
"Oh yes," she says, with a rising inflection that bodes ill for the nude furniture mover. "Yes, I asked him what he was doing. And he told me – get ready for this – he told me that in his fantasy, the room was arranged differently."
I can hardly speak for laughing. "He- he- he had a fantasy about your living room furniture?" I really don't know what the staff at Hana must make of our conversations. I'm sure they think we are very, very strange.
"Apparently he felt it was important."
"Okay, you win the prize for weirdest person of the week. So what did you do?"
"Well, I just stood there for a minute and gave him a look. And then I told him that he shouldn't have moved my furniture without permission, and he apologized. And then I asked him if the way that I looked more or less fit with his fantasy, because I really wasn't interested in having him try to rearrange me."
"Oh, good one."
"So he apologized again, and,"- she shrugged - "we did the date."

Of course she did, because for all her show of indignation, Miss K has the generosity of spirit to forgive faux pas like these. It's one of the traits that makes her a good friend, and I also consider it essential to being a good sex worker. Yeah, it's great to have a good figure and a pretty face and the technical skills that go along with your particular speciality. But if you don't have some kindness and compassion to give your clients, they'll feel that, and a lot of them won't come back. That's true in any branch of the sex industry - even mine.